Camerimage 2021

“No Man of God” is a behind-closed-doors look into a cell where an FBI agent is interrogating a serial killer. It is an adaptation of authentic recordings made by Bill Hagmaier during his interviews with Ted Bundy. Director Amer Sealey and her DoP Karina Silva implemented directorial and cinematographic strategies to portray these sequences, which are all alike on paper, in order to impart rhythm to the film. “No Man of God” is in competition this year at Torun in the “Cinematographers’ Debuts Competition”. (FR)

Presented in the “Contemporary World Cinema” selection, As In Heaven is the first feature film by Danish director Tea Lindeburg. She worked on this film alongside cinematographer Marcel Zyskind, DFF. This film—starring mainly children, shot in film, low-budget, and dealing with a taboo topic—was, despite all these challenges, a total success, revealing the Marcel Zyskind’s admirable gaze, at once modest and grandiose, in a grainy and sun-filled 35mm. The film navigates between dream and reality, confining itself strictly to a child’s view on events whose scope is beyond her ken and that will nonetheless deeply change her life. The cinematographer, a regular at the festival, and the director were in attendance on Monday to answer the audience’s questions after the film’s first screening. (MC)

From the family of films about the Knights of the Round Table, I choose… The Green Knight! A new variation on the quest theme, that sheds light on the lesser-known character of Sir Gawain (played by Dev Patel, the British actor of Indian descent, who had his breakout role with Slumdog Millionaire). Andrew Droz Palermo, Californian cinematographer, seconds his faithful collaborator, David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, A Ghost Story), in filming this mysterious story that draws as much from the universe of chivalry as from fantasy.

Cinematographer Xavier Dolléans, AFC, partnership with director David Hourrègue is long-standing, and the two have worked together on several series, such as "Cut" (France Ô) and "Skam" (France TV Slash). The duo has built a certain reputation on the back of the success of these programmes, and they attacked their first big-budget project with the same production crew. This project is a new, six-episode adaptation of Zola’s novel Germinal, shot with a 12-million-Euro budget. This series will be broadcast on public television by France Télévisions and is expected to be one of the public service broadcaster’s main attractions of October 2021. This is also a major event for Xavier, who has been selected in competition at Toruń for Best Television Series Image. (FR)

This year, students from the ENS Louis Lumière, La Fémis and CinéFabrique attended the Camerimage festival. Therefore, the AFC has offered them different opportunities of participating in the articles published on this website. In his second article, Clément Colliaux, a 3^rd-year student at the Ecole nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière, takes a look at the tribute entitled “Remembering the Masters” * that was dedicated to Allen Daviau, ASC and Michael Chapman, ASC, in presence of Lawrence Sher, ASC, Seamus McGarvey, BSC, ASC, and Amy Vincent, ASC.

A rare filmmaker, director Jane Campion, is back 12 years after her last film, Bright Star. This time, she has chosen to adapt Thomas Savage’s novel The Power of the Dog, a rivalry between two brothers in which isolation and nature — a ranch in Montana in the 1920s — play a preponderant role. Following in the footsteps of Stuart Dryburgh, ACS, ASC, and Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC, it is now the turn of young DoP Ari Wegner, ACS, to accompany the Australian 1994 Oscar-winning director. Produced by Netflix, The Power of the Dog will be released online on the company’s platform on 1^st December.

For her first film, filmmaker Ameen Nayfeh chose to plunge her viewers into the Kafkaesque experience of daily life in Palestine. Separated from his wife and children by 200 meters (she lives and works on the other side of the wall, in Israel), Mustafa has no choice but to communicate with them every evening by a childish game of turning the lights on and off. But when his son is the victim of an accident, he tries to gain access to the Jewish State by any means possible. Elin Kirschfink, AFC, SBC, was the cinematographer of this audacious testimony, which already received the Audience Award at the Venice Film Festival this year. (FR)

In 2019, the AFC hosted several screenings of a comparative test of lenses designed for standard 18 × 24 format. Presented in Paris at the Cercle Rouge and the Louis-Lumière school, in Poland at the Camerimage Festival and in Los Angeles at the E-Film laboratory, the test examined lenses currently available on the market for sale or rental and was, of course, presented without bias or preference of any kind, regardless of the manufacturers or partners participating in the project.

Along with an exhibition of his photographic work at Toruń’s Center of Contemporary Art, from November 13 to 25, Camerimage will host a "Meeting with Bruno Nuytten," on Wednesday the 17^th at the Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej (CSW) at 6:15 PM.

After Moonlight, in 2016, which won the Oscars for best film and best screenplay, director Barry Jenkins decided to adapt Colson Whitehead’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning "Underground Railroad" for his first series. He teamed up again with James Laxton, ASC, whom he has known since they were both students at the University of Tallahassee, Florida. Both filmmakers explored a very different universe from that of their prior films, one that mixes the authenticity of a period film (the story takes place in the slave era in the middle of the 19^th Century) with fantasy. The story follows the flight of Cora, a young slave being pursued by one of her master’s employees, through several states. A series broadcast on Amazon Prime, which has been heaped with praise since its release online. (FR)

Lucie Baudinaud is a young French cinematographer who has recently signed off on many shorts and feature films, both documentary and fiction. Noteworthy amongst her recent projects is Elie Grappe’s Olga, in competition at the Cannes Critics’ Week, and which will be released in theatres on Wednesday. Today at Camerimage, she is presenting Les Enfants Terribles, a documentary by Ahmet Necdet Cupur. (MC)

Stéphane Kuthy, SCS, is a Franco-Swiss cinematographer who lives and works in Zurich. He has shot over fifteen fiction features and about twenty documentary features with the likes of Bettina Oberli, Emily Atef, Georges Gachot and, recently, Mano Khalil, a Swiss director of Kurdish origin. The latter’s film Neighbors is Kuthy’s entry to this year’s Camerimage festival, in the Cinematographer’s Debuts Competition. The film is a reconstitution of life in a Kurdish village on the border between Turkey and Syria in the early 1980s. Mixing humour and drama, this is the story of a young boy’s life in this rapidly changing country divided by an arbitrary border. (FR)

The AFC’s presence at Camerimage this year will first and foremost be through its representation in the selection: seven films shot by its members are in competition in various sections. In the wake of the “Lifetime Achievement Award” presented to Philippe Rousselot, AFC, ASC, in 2020, a retrospective of four of his films will be screened. Another film shot by Will Kurant, AFC, ASC, will be screened as part of the series entitled “In Memory of the Masters”, and the cinematography of two short films, which are part of the “Focus on La Fémis” series, is by two AFC members at the start of their respective careers.

Angénieux will be present at Camerimage 2021 by offering a conference on the Full Frame range of its Optimo optics, on the one hand, and thanks to part of its team, on site in Torun from 15 to 17 November, on the other hand.

Arri will be present at EnergaCamerimage with a stand at the Market, two Arri events will be scheduled and an Arri team will be present.

The Leitz team will be happy to welcome you from November 13 to 20, 2021, in Torun, Poland, for the 29^th edition of the Camerimage International Film Festival.

Our Rosco / DMG team will be present in numbers, from Novembre 15 to 19, 2021, at the EnergaCamerimage 29^th edition, and will lead two conferences: one about the Rosco SoftDrop backgrounds, and the other on LEDs and workflow.

Sony will be present at the EnergaCamerimage Market during the whole festival, from November 13 to 20, and will offer a screening and two "Sony CineAlta" conferences.